One Step Backwards, One Step Upwards

Posted on Sun Nov 13th, 2022 @ 1:09am by Captain Calypso Skyie & Captain Natalya Markova & Lieutenant F'Arra MD

Mission: The Interim
Location: Officer Quarters, Deck 3
Timeline: Intermission

ON

Dr F'Arra stepped out of the Lieutenant's quarters, a frown on the feline face, her brow almost knitting together. The doors closed behind her, as the woman started down the corridor. The woman was reeling from her experiences. That was to be expected. The depth to which she appeared to be sinking into herself... it worried the doctor. Her thoughts were almost so consuming she almost walked into someone else. "Excuse me..." Her voice was flat, and distracted. Then the Caitian realized who she had almost collided with. "Oh, Captain!"

Calypso had already had her hands out slightly as if to catch the Caitian, just in case their collision course hadn't been averted as she'd chosen the path closest to the wall, while F'Arra had been drifting. "Good... Afternoon I think it is already?" The Captain gave an apologetically confused smile. They had all been busy and with Oracle, or Perseus as she still remembered her by, being towed behind the ship on the way back to the Starbase, plus with several dozen prisoners crowding the brig and even one of the cargo bays hastily set up, there were distractions aplenty.

Instead, the Captain quirked a slight smile, "How's Lieutenant Markova doing? I haven't had a good chance to poke my head in on her with the hustle and bustle, besides, she'd say she was good to go before admitting that she were injured."

F'Arra glanced back at the woman's quarters, a concerned expression on her face. "Physically, she'll heal. Bones mend, cartilage repairs, and bruising goes away. She looks worse than she is, but some marines seem to have an almost reverence for the physical marks of battle." She shook her head, never understanding that one.

"I do worry about her psychology. She won't tell me everything she went through on the pirate ship, but I have heard from others what happened here." A shudder rocked through her body. Being ejected into space. It was among the worst means of death she could imagine. She knew Earth's history had a very particular view on piracy and murder. Even so, dying in the cold vacuum of space was not a pleasant prospect. "You going to see her, Captain?"

"That was the plan, unless you think it wouldn't be a good idea?" Cally quirked an eyebrow slightly, then shook her head, "I got to see her for just a few seconds when she beamed in, but then she was off again to fight off that boarding crew. That was the last I saw of her, because I've been just a bit busy in my own right getting that ship back under our control. I read the brief report she wrote up before you put her in bed, but I do need to hear the whole story."

F'Arra nodded. "Let me know if there's you feel I should know." The doctor requested. "I'll trust your judgement." She moved aside down the hall, ready to get some rest herself.

As she got to the door, Calypso reached out for the chime, but stopped when the door slid open instead. Apparently, she was expected. Still, she knocked on the side of the door as she walked in to announce her presence instead of just sneaking up on the Marine.

The sight that greeted her was definitely not what she'd normally seen from Natalya, but when it came down to it, even she herself tended to relax much this way, even if it weren't looking out a window. She smiled slightly as she unsealed her jacket to fit the more relaxed mood of the situation and approached, "Good afternoon, Nat, I hope that you're feeling a bit better?"

Nat didn't react for a second or two. Dressed in sweats, and curled in a corner of the couch, she held her gaze out the window. A glass rested on her knee, held in one hand, the amber liquid within speaking volumes of her endeavour to quit drinking.

After a number of seconds, she turned her head to face the Captain. Bruising could be seen across the bridge of her nose, her hand still strapped, and a metallic splint on one finger.

"The doc says I look worse than I am." She smiled, but it was a stopped that didn't go beyond the mouth. "Have a seat, Captain. Have a drink." She waved at the couch with her glass, there was a bottle of the same amber liquid on the coffee table.

For a brief moment, Calypso almost declined the drink, but in the end poured herself a measure of the liquid and settled herself into couch, adjusting her pocket as she did so, "I don't think I'm the Captain right now, Nat, not with this in hand." She toasted the Marine with her glass, "I screwed up bad, should have trusted the Gunny, but I thought I was doing the right thing."

"No way you could have predicted her reaction." Nat said, with a shake of her head. "No way either of us could have predicted it." Her eyes found the window again. "Did we lose anyone? During the boarding?"

'Eleven security officers.' Cally thought to herself, reciting the names in her head, 'Along with four Science personnel, a nurse in the wrong place at the wrong time and two engineers doing damage control.' She nodded slightly, taking a long sip of the drink, then finally answered, "A few. we were at least prepared for being boarded so we had non-essential personnel sequestered and guarded. Went hard on the security forces, though.. If Reishi had been around with her troops? It would have gone better, I think."

Guilt clutched at Nat's heart. "I tried..." She started, and stopped. Still looking out the window, not quite wanting to meet Cally's face. "I couldn't move before the boarding team left for the Chimera. I had to be sure they were gone before I started. Maybe I should have moved sooner... kept them busy hunting me on the Oracle." Then maybe she'd be dead. Better her than innocent people just doing their job. Nat shook her head to herself, shaking away the thought. She finished off her glass. "You say you're not the Captain right now?" Nat looked into Cally's eyes. There was something she needed to say. Something she had to get out. Damn the consequences. "I told you, in the Staff briefing... I said being ambushed is a fine way to get fucked over." She was angry. Angry at Cally for not listening to her. Angry at the Gunny for leaving. Angry at the Major for betraying the Corps. Angry at herself for... "Why couldn't we have just pretended to be pirates? I wouldn't have had to..." She couldn't say it. Her eyes were drawn to the window again.

"No, you wouldn't have." Cally stared into her glass, swirling the alcohol and decidedly not drinking it, "But I would have, we all would have had to." She said quietly, "No, it would have been me. I would have had to prove myself to whoever was 'interviewing' me to get to Penweather. I didn't know it was him, but it would have been bad. And we didn't even get him." Her voice growled deeply, "He's still out there, undoubtedly with that Venture-class and uprooting himself to go somewhere else and do it all over again. I should have damned my own god-damned soul to get in close and shove the knife in."

This time Cally did take a drink, a deep drink, "No, Nat, I'm not the Captain right now, I'm a Marine. You did nothing wrong, nothing at all. The casualties over here? My fault. I didn't take the possibility of being boarded seriously enough. If I had, I would have told the Gunny, hell, I would have borrowed a company to make sure that the bastards wouldn't have gotten past the first bulkhead."

Nat didn't answer right away. She didn't want to argue with the woman over who was at fault for what. "The... Commodore, he called himself. Damien Penweather? He was insane. Lucid, rational. Still insane. He wanted to use the Chimera to blow up the Starbase. What the hell happened to him to be that screwed up?"

"The Dominion War." Calypso closed her eyes at her own memories of that time of fire and death, "He was a Lieutenant Exec of a Defiant near the start of it and was in some of the thickest of the space battles, getting his own ship about two months in. He was what was needed at one point, to keep us from falling back. Young, dumb and aggressive, willing to give his life and those of his crew to delay the Dominion or Cardassians for one more hour, one more day while we built up our own forces. At least, that's what the Skipper told me. Captain Taylor was there at his court martial, one of the Tribunal as a Commander when they cashiered him as unfit to wear the uniform." She opened her eyes and drained her glass, "One of the battles, Cardassians were trying to surrender their ships to stay alive, especially the troopship Captains, but the Dominion escorts kept fighting. Penweather didn't discriminate whether he was shooting at a transport trying to surrender versus a warship shooting back at him. His Exec turned him in, even, bridge crew all testified against him saying he deliberately targeted the transports."

Nat furrowed her brow. It was more common than a lot thought. She had missed the War, thank God. It had been a brutal campaign. While Starfleet had won in the end, it had come at a high cost, and many of the soldiers were the ones who paid that price. Even the ones who lived.

"I assume he's securely contained?" She remembered the ferocity with which he had spoken if his plan. The single minded dedication with which he had set to his course. It was frightening to look back on.

"He wasn't on board Oracle when we finally took her. A handful of small craft escaped and the one we caught had a junior officer on board with a couple others." Cally shook her head, "No doubt he had a bolthole he can run to and I'm sure that Intelligence will interrogate his crew and glean out where his base of operations is." She waved a hand in a shaky motion, "Of course he's already moving that base by now, he's too smart to stay in a place that might be compromised."

Nat's expression went blank as the words sank in. His people had been there when she'd beamed out. They had seen her. They must have realised, and reported to him.

Damien Penwhetger knew she had betrayed him. Been a spy, a saboteur aboard his ship. He was out there. A small shudder ran through her body.

It wasn't fear, not exactly. It was just knowing she'd have to keep one eye behind her all the time. Keep watching her back. The guy was clearly not known for letting things go.

She gave Cally an apprehensive look. "That's gonna bite us in the ass later."

Shaking her head, Cally looked into her glass sadly as it was empty, knowing that for a refill that she'd have to stand up again and not really wanting to, "He's going to bite someone else in the ass. Goes to pattern, you see, he has a major setback in one place, so like any smart pickpocket, he's going to move onto a different mark and set up shop until he runs into the police officer in that neck of the woods."

She paused for a moment, then snickered softly, "Maybe he'll even run into Halcyon. I'm sure he'd like to say hello in his own way. But either way, Nat, we aren't going to be the cop that gets him. Maybe he'll even run into a mischief before then. Stranger things have happened."

Nat didn't respond. She just stared into her empty glass. There was still so much to process. So much to unpack in her mind. "Was Bex onboard? Blonde, female, rather attractive."

Calypso was quiet for a moment, then shook her head, "No, she wasn't on board Perseus, Nat, sorry." It wasn't even a lie. She kept a straight face, but couldn't keep it for more than a moment, "She came aboard in a personal yacht, I have her in a guarded set of spare quarters. I haven't had a chance to talk to her yet, I wanted to make sure I had enough proper time."

Nat nodded, relief showing on her face. "It's..." She let out a breath. "It's a long story, in full. One hell of a sea story, that's for sure." She wasn't sure how Cally would take it, when she sent in her AAR. Much less what Starfleet would think. The thought stopped her dead. "So, not to sound entirely selfish." She tried a smile. It didn't stick. "What's gonna happen with me? I mean, to maintain my cover, you had to process my removal from Starfleet."

"And so I did." Cally nodded and placed the empty glass on the side table before leaning forward in the chair, "Hated doing it, too, but couldn't risk it being found out.. But what I can have removed from the system, I can also arrange to have put back into the system." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small jewelry box, opening it with one hand and holding it out, "Wouldn't you agree, Captain Markova?"

Nat's mouth hung open, stunned, and at a loss for words. Her glass was set down on the table, and she threw her arms around Cally in a hug. "Thank you." The words were barely a whisper, next to Cally's ear. "Thank you, Captain."

Cally was bowled over with the hug and she couldn't help but laugh, "Don't thank me, Nat, you're the one who volunteered to go into a place where you were more likely to get killed than come out alive!" She returned the hug, with some interest, "There's possibly another award on the way, but that one I had to send away for, you know, needed more cereal box tops to redeem it or something."

"If I ever volunteer for something like that again, shoot me." Nat gave a genuine smile, the first actual smile she had had in far too long. The box fitted into her hand as she took it from Cally. Captain. The railroad bars shone in the light. It was something she had never expected. Her eyes met Cally's, and they sparkled with a joy she hadn't felt since long before coming aboard the Chimera. "I have a team to get back."

"And you'd better do that, but I need you back as soon as you can, buster." Calypso poked at her ineffectually with a finger, "Because we leave in a few days and we aren't coming back anytime soon. You miss the bus, you get left behind."

"I guess I have some work to do then." Nat took a breath, and let it out slowly, glad for the jolt in her mind. The sudden shock of the news had been like a bolt of lightning, to reset her. "Thank you, Cally. Genuinely."